Digitally enabled telephones, including cellular telephones, so called “smart phones”, Java enabled phones and VoIP telephones (telephones which communicate through the “Voice over IP” protocol, also known as Internet telephones) are all able to communicate with a server. Unlike simple analog telephones, this ability to communicate with a server increases the variety and type of services which may be offered through such communication devices.
One type of service that may be offered through digital telephones is the ability to receive updated personal identification information, such as contact information from a server. For example, if a plurality of users wishes to receive information about changed contact details, such as a new telephone number for a subscriber, such users may receive such information through communication devices connected to a server, which can update their “address books” or stored information about telephone numbers and the subscribers associated therewith. Optionally other types of contact information may also be updated, including email and postal addresses, type of position held, photographs and the like. Such a service is useful for members of an organization, such as a company, for example, and for consumers who are interested for maintaining up-to-date contact information for their contacts. Current data synchronization services that are offered by network operators through protocols as SyncML (Synchronization Markup Language), synchronizes contact information and other Personal Information Management (PIM) data (e.g., calendar, notes), between a subscriber and a server. Synchronization between multiple subscribers is not provided by standardized systems.
Unfortunately, although the above service is useful for backup and restore in case of data loss, it can only redistribute information between telephones in the context of a single user account. Therefore, it has limited capacity for installing updated information and/or for distributing such information between different users across the system. Two-way communication between the telephone and the server is also limited, as the majority, if not all, communication is initiated by the telephone only (“pull”).